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Abstract
The essay considers the Royal Theater of Madrid from the point of view of the impresario Ramón de Michelena, who managed it by himself from 1884 to 1894. New documents coming from his family archive are used. To begin with, an account of the theater in these years is presented paying attention to the main problems affecting the production of opera, for instance the continuity of an old-fashioned repertoire and the splitting of the public into opposing groups that contested the impresario decisions. Texts by critics and composers leading musical debates at the time are used to achieve this goal. The main issues of Michelena’s management are then discussed. Finally, several documents of the archive are used in order to reconstruct the process of recruitment of singers, with emphasis on the evaluation of the voices and the role played by theatrical agents and music editors, as Ricordi, based in Milan.